Recent media interest has drawn attention to two so-called errors in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC, the first dealing with losses from disasters and the second on the subject of Amazon forests. The leadership of the IPCC has looked into both these instances and concluded that the challenges are without foundations. In neither case, did we find any basis for making changes in the wording of the report. We are convinced that there has been no error on those issues on the part of the IPCC. We released a statement about the disaster issue. As far as the second subject dealing with the Amazon is concerned, again, the IPCC has valid reasons for publishing the text as it stands in the report.

In response to these baseless charges, we have decided to provide details on the manner in which the IPCC has implemented its principles and procedures. These are the foundations that provide assurance on the validity and accuracy of statements made in the AR4.

OMG! What is it with these people? Doesn’t anyone coach them on PR? I can’t imagine a worse public response. At a time when the major issue for the IPCC is credibility and trust they simply say, in effect, ‘we had our reasons, trust us’.
Simply unbelievable. Keep it up boys and girls – shoot the other foot off!

“Some important information appears not in scientific journals but rather in reports from governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the IPCC to fulfill its comprehensive assessment mandate, it needs to assess the information in these reports.”

Well I read that to the end but I felt like Jim Hacker listening to Sir Humphrey using gobblygook to ‘explain’ and obfuscate the inescusable.

Before I started I made a short list of what I expected to find. I score three out of four:

Peer reviewed………………..Check

Thousands of scientists…..Check

Consensus……………………..Check

What I did not see was the almost obligatory ad hominem attacks which frustrated AGW supporters everywhere use because they are simply unable to argue the facts or the science.

Interesting that the consensus in this case is presented as a political consensus of goverments, not of scientists.

Something I did not expect to see: ‘gender balance’. Huh? What’s that about? I do not recall seeing any High Priestesses amongst the pretty well all male rogues gallery. Just an occasional female ‘scientist’ on the fringes amongst the water carriers.

What a joke. The IPCC spin doctors have had things their own way for so long they are incapable of writing a plausible press release. Either that, or the IPCC high priests, Pachauri et al, have completely taken over the PR machinery – and we know how deluded they are.

In my opinion, it would be better for us to leave the current incompetents in charge of the IPCC for a while longer. That will help to hasten the demise of the entire AGW scam.

To those of us who have seen the sloppiness in the IPCC for years, it is not surprising that there are quite a few non-scientific citations in the IPCC reports. We also expect them to show support for the theory of anthroprogenic global warming because we have also seen the bias of the IPCC over the years.

We need to point out though that all pseudo-scientific citations support the AGW theory. That alone is alone is proof of the bias in the report. If this was just sloppy science there would be citations from both the “skeptics” and the “science is settled” crowd in the report.

To the skeptics this goes without saying, but to openminded people who have gotten their info from the media this could really open their eyes to what is going on. It is proof that there is not just sloppy science, but that the entire IPCC has an agenda.

That was hardly “firing back”. More like a junior PR journo-type being thrust into the front-line to put up counter-fire. This was, as a piece of propaganda, totally useless; it made no sense, addressed none of the issues and just advertised the IPCC’s arrogance.

This press release looks remarkably similar to what Pachauri has been saying himself in interviews. Looks like he trotted this rubbish out in a fit of pique.

“The leadership of the IPCC has looked…” Who is ‘the leadership’? Is that Pachauri himself?

“…the challenges are without foundations” They will come to regret this.

“…again, the IPCC has valid reasons for publishing the text as it stands…”

Care to share with us what these ‘valid reasons’ are?

They are digging themselves into an even bigger hole.

The Statement on IPCC principles and procedures ends with “The IPCC is in the early stages of another challenging and massive exercise, the preparation of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) – due in 2013/2014. We invite the entire scientific community to contribute to this important effort.”

Note the invitation. Make sure your voice is heard – bet it won’t be! “Many are called, but few are chosen!”

I read 450 scientists, where the pdf leads in with ‘thousands of scientists’.
A pyramid structure.
Top of the heap are politicians. They ‘distill’ the messages, and the concensus is of the politicans, NOT the scientists.
Comments appear to make up the bulk of pyramids.
No mention of confidence levels specifically, could be anything.
(4) word-by-word, consensus approval, by governments, of the Summaries for Policymakers.
What’s a report? What’s a concensus? Who decides whether there is actually any science underlying the reports? Who are the commentors?
What happens if somebody does not agree with the PolicyMakers?

i love that “broad, balanced participation in the author teams” is listed as a key component in paragraph 4 pg 1 of the IPCC principles and procedures document that’s attached.

that’s a helluva defense for them to use with a straight face.

there is a line in there about the role of not just peer reviewed science, but also reports from government bodies and NGO’s, so i guess citing the WWF, greenpeace, and some outdoors magazines is OK after all…

As long as they escape being charged with fraud and/or corruption and taken to court, they will continue their tactics of smoke and mirrors. There’s just too people at high places who are desperate to keep the IPCC alive. The battles must be moved to the courts to get real progress.

“The IPCC does not carry out original research. It assesses the findings in scientific publications. Most of the scientific literature assessed by the IPCC is published in scientific journals, where the journals’ peer-review and editorial processes provide an important foundational stage of quality
control. Some important information appears not in scientific journals but rather in reports from governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the IPCC to fulfill its comprehensive assessment mandate, it needs to assess the information in these reports. This is an important responsibility, but it is also a challenge, because the diverse approaches to reviewing and editing in these alternative sources of information force the IPCC authors, reviewers, and review editors to utilize additional care and professional judgment in evaluating them.”

In other words… we put what ever we want in the report… as long as it is scary enough to bring about the changes we want…

Hey … no question of handing back the Nobel … they’re giving Pachy another award, in recognition of his “outstanding contribution and leadership in the area of climate change and, in particular, his contribution to knowledge and global action on climate change and cities.” Plus a $10,000 cash prize.

If you read the principles and procedures it states quite clearly that a portion of the material they review and assess is not from peer reviewed literature, to wit:

“The IPCC does not carry out original research. It assesses the findings in scientific publications. Most of the scientific literature assessed by the IPCC is published in scientific journals, where the journals’ peer-review and editorial processes provide an important foundational stage of quality control. Some important information appears not in scientific journals but rather in reports from governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the IPCC to fulfill its comprehensiveassessment mandate, it needs to assess the information in these reports. This is an important responsibility, but it is also a challenge, because the diverse approaches to reviewing and editing in these alternative sources of information force the IPCC authors, reviewers, and review editors to utilize additional care and professional judgment in evaluating them.”

So in a nutshell… the literature can come from anywhere and we shall interpret it the way we like.

Later they say:

“The IPCC procedures provide a strong foundation for the organization. They minimize the risk of errors and maximize the emphasis on balance, especially as messages move from first drafts of chapters toward the Summaries for Policymakers.”

UN IPCC also targets the money sources. There is now a UN department focused on your super, with UN based policies signing up retirement funds all over the world to their strategies. In other words your retirement dollars are going to ‘green’ causes and funding the AGW industry.

That second link is one I just found, and what I meant was to use the references to the Telegraph that it contains. Note that that site is a bit, shall we say, “odd” overall. Needless to say, I don’t subscribe to some of their other stuff. That said, since they are the type I would expect to otherwise go for AGW, the fact that even they are angry about what the IPCC is doing tells us that the Leftist base may in fact really be crumbling. (sorry, I should have said that above)

The Climate Clowns at the IPCC should get a Nobel for Climate Ingenuity (as in Cunning) and maybe a name change to Intergovernmental Panel on Carbon Chicanery, then at least we could all agree on their real purpose in life. (i.e. Taxing the life out of the giver of ALL LIFE ON EARTH CO2)

“How dare you question your overlords!? Everything we say, every word, is ROBUST! Publications from non-scientific propaganda organizations like greenpeace are ‘peer-reviewed’ if we say they are! Now shut up, get in line and throw away modern life like we told you to.”

Not a surprising response, except for the fact they felt they needed to publicly respond. The optimist in me is happy to see the obviously defensive tone.

My assessment is that the IPCC is operated on the basis that anthropogenic global warming is real, and generously financing various scientific groups to confirm this, rather than to scientifically assess the issue.

Naturally these groups are reluctant to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, and there you go…

The next question concerns the origin of the IPCC which, arising under the auspices of the U.N., had shakers and movers that established and maintained it. Who were these people and what were their interests and motivations and, has there been a change since the inception of the IPCC?

Pachauri — a cross between Nixon & Carter — he’s claiming that he’s not a crook but he has lust in his heart. Nixon was in denial mode right to the very end — and now it’s Pachauri’s turn. The end is nigh. He can devote himself to his “literary” career. Hmmm A Memoir of Lust.

They could’ve tried to fire back to the skeptics about the big warmup in the Southern Hemisphere SST’s according to Unisys. but it seems like they changed satallites or issued a major correction with the marked change in their map from yesterdayhttp://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html

Now it shows southern SST’s going down while the Northern Hemisphere remains almost unchanged, with ironically puts it more in line with NOAA’s charts which actually was showing cooler oceans than Unisys.

“So what if none of our references in AR4 were peer-reviewed? They were published (in magazines and propaganda brochures)!

We, the vaunted IPCC (agenda) Team firmly believe that, if they had been submitted for (our) peer-review, all of these nonscientific speculations would have been accepted with no criticism (with our streamlined inhouse peer-review process, we would not even read them!).

Thus, the IPCC stands behind everything we deem fit to include in our report that would serve to convince the uninformed, trusting public that we are going to warm and turn a watery planet in to DUNE.

Can’t ‘The World Court’ indict the Secretary General and all the members of the IPCC. Do we have a “World Attorney General” that knows how to do something like that? “Crimes Against Humanity” sounds like a reasonable charge. How about throwing in “Using Official Positions for Unlawful Personal Gain”? Pachauri wouldn’t be able to sell more than a dozen copies of his new “book” unless he had the political clout of a super-duper UN mucky-muck. About the Secretary General, I guess they’ll only be able to impeach him and throw him out on his ear. Maybe we could imprison them all on St Helena, don’t the British still have it? So fitting, first Napoleon and then Pachauri & Friends. And the Noble Peace Prize, don’t try to recoup the cash from them, go after The Committee and wring it out of their hides. Do you think there might be room on the island for BIG AL?

jeez (15:37:33), Fiddling — the data— while the Earth refuses to burn.?

They are now hanging on by their fingernails. They will keep this up for some time yet. They will go on trying to make people think that we have the same motives as they have and only see the problem in terms of marking points. In this context Harrabin’s remark in his letter today (“We are looking for scientists, of course – not insults.”) is particularly significant. Who does he think we are?

The arrogance on display here makes me feel this came off or at least passed through Pachauri’s desk. One more nail in the coffin.
From the Financial Times :
“They are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder – and I hope they put it on their faces every day.” – Pachauri

The guy is getting delusional. In his world people are merely automatons requiring programming. Clearly we are the problem, we just need debugging.

I read it thus:
It gives the IPCC’s role as not to do the science. Nor is its role to do policy. Rather, the IPCC is “to provide policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive information” and to do this by assessing the science.

But there is an inherent contradiction in the Statement: The peak of ‘pyramid’ of its process of scientific assessment is the “Summary for Policymakers” which “must also be approved, word by word, by consensus, by all the participating governments, typically representing more than 120 countries.”

Again:

“The integrity in the IPCC assessments and their fidelity to the underlying scientific information comes
from four main components…[the 4th being] (4) word-by-word, consensus approval, by governments, of the Summaries for Policymakers.”

Again:

“The fourth stage, word-by-word consensus approval by governments, is an important check on all the other components of the process.”

Thus, the approval of governments is what ensuring ‘fidelity to the underlying scientific information’ and provides ‘an important check on the other components’ of the scientific? process…hmmm

Well, I guess there is an implicit message here, namely that this is why the slip about the glaciers drying up, yes the ones that feed the rivers serinh more than a billion poor folk, this did not make it to the peak Summary.

But what a strangely unselfconsious document it is! Indeed, as it says, it is “remarkable to think that every participating government has approved every word in an IPCC Summary for Policymakers.” It is remarkable because how can this approval still represent the peak of its scientific assessment and advice to these same governments? This policy document gives little hint of reform of the unscientific politization of the assessment, instead presenting in itself as a recepe for a politicised process.

And so the self-assessment of the effectiveness of its own value within the document sound decidely creepy:

The IPCC procedures, which are regularly reviewed and amended by the IPCC members, have served the international community effectively for over 20 years.

[The IPCC reports] ” have become, over the last 20 years, the international gold standard in the scientific assessment of climate change.”

The next IPCC statement will read, “We had reasons to claim that the glaciers in the Amazon would be gone by 2035 and we were right. Its worse than we thought. If only the high climate sensitivity of the Himalayan forests to global warming had not caused their destruction, the world might have had a chance.”

By 2020, significant loss of biodiversity is projected to occur
in some ecologically rich sites, including the Great Barrier Reef
and Queensland Wet Tropics. {WGII 11.4, SPM}

Professor Peter Ridd on Alan Jones radio program this morning.

The Great Barrier Reef is the finest environment in Australia and is the finest coral reef in the world. The only problem it faces is in south in Morton Bay where the waters are too cold! A recent check on biodiversity showed all original organisms are still in abundance.

The revelations have shown the “world’s premier authority on climate science”, as some have it, to be nothing of the sort. There could be no reason for all the ‘gates’, unless they were using their reports to further an agenda. If the evidence was so strong, they wouldn’t have needed to trawl suspect sources for sensational stories.

The IPCC has destroyed its reputation by its own hand, and no amount of excuses or blustering will repair that.

The head of the UN’s climate change body is under pressure to resign after one of his strongest allies in the environmental movement said his judgment was flawed and called for a new leader to restore confidence in climatic science.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has insisted that he will remain in post for another four years despite having failed to act on a serious error in the body’s 2007 report.

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK , said that Dr Pachauri should have acted as soon as he had been informed of the error, even though issuing a correction would have embarrassed the IPCC on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.

A journalist working for Science had told Dr Pachauri several times late last year that glaciologists had refuted the IPCC claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Dr Pachauri refused to address the problem, saying: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.” He suggested that the error would not be corrected until 2013 or 2014, when the IPCC next reported.”

In too many of these MSM articles that purport to show the warts on AGW, no matter what problems are brought to light, they end up saying it does not affect the “fact” that AGW is a real problem. I think what some others have expressed in one way or another, the AGW’ers are putting up an appearance of engaging the skeptics but in the end they will claim that they listened to the arguments, found them lacking, and then declare victory. The IPCC will party on as will Mann. I only hope something comes to fruition on the Phil Jones investigation. Even if it does, I’m not betting it will stop the AGW train.

Book description:
“With increasing globalization, the meaning and role of the nation-state are in flux. At the same time, state theory, which might help to explain such a trend, has fallen victim to the general decline of radical movements, particularly the crisis in Marxism. This volume seeks to enrich and complicate current political debates by bringing state theory back to the fore and assessing its relevance to the social phenomena and thought of our day. Throughout, it becomes clear that, whether confronting the challenges of postmodern and neo-institutionalist theory or the crisis of the welfare state and globalization, state theory still has great analytical and strategic value. ”

(Taken from Amazon description of the book)

Second reference on Chapter 7 of interest is this:

Allianz and World Wildlife Fund, 2006: Climate change and the financial sector: an agenda for action, 59 pp.

Allianz Group and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have joined forces
to produce a report that will advance the debate in the financial community,
and to propose solutions. The report identifies risks for the sector which are
due to climate change, and develops actions that demonstrate how integrated
financial services companies, such as Allianz Group, can turn these risks
into opportunities

“…again, the IPCC has valid reasons for publishing the text as it stands…”

Care to share with us what these ‘valid reasons’ are?

That is easy to answer the valid reasons are to provide the United Nations (and the World Bank) the right to tax the evil industrialized middle class. You have to understand “according to Marxism, objective truth is nothing but a bourgeois trick” it is perfectly acceptable to lie if it is “for the Cause” Once you understand that, and of course many of the warmists do, his justification is perfectly valid.

I wish I could say this is sarcasm but I am afraid it is not. We are arguing from two completely different sets of principles, one based on the scientific method and truth, the other based on political ideology.

A poster at the daily telegraph has provided a nice summary of the stages of belief the AGW crowd is beginning to go through

1) Denial – A total refusal to see, believe or accept what has happened.
2) Anger – Blaming someone else, oneself, everyone else or anything else for what has happened. The deeper the belief, the more vehement this stage is.
3) Bargaining – Believing that you can still do some trading to keep all, something or at least a shred of the collapsing structure. eg concessions,
scapegoats, prayer.
4) Depression – It can’t be stopped. Apathy, depression, tiredness, feeling unfairly punished.
5) Acceptance – Utter Calm. It’s all over. Death.

The IPCC is at Stage 1 (“two so-called errors” “baseless charges”)

Sir David King stepped into Stage 2 when stating the CRU leak “was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency”

Fred Pearce, the long-time Guardian AGW journo, has moved to Stage 3, in an article criticizing Phil Jones. His negotiating stance: I’ll throw Prof. HideTheDecline to the wolves and everything will go back to normal.

@Gail Combs
“I wish I could say this is sarcasm but I am afraid it is not. We are arguing from two completely different sets of principles, one based on the scientific method and truth, the other based on political ideology.”

Very true. This is why we will see these ideologies still pursued even if the science crumbles.

Nice one sir, Mandy always was class, enjoyed a chat with her one night. She was not like the new modern “scientific ones” you always knew the outcome with her, the new ones they just keep saying “its hot”

The IPCC can’t wait for AR5, where they can embark upon a binge-drinking weekend. They’re going to need the xtra support.
Gotta give the Love Guru credit: He’s mighty handy with the Novel approach to Saving the Planet.

Pachauri and his ilk are not only cheats and liars but homicidal monomaniacs whose conventional facades mask a demonic hatred of post-Enlightenment industrial/technological civilization. Like Lenin, Stalin, Mao T’se-tung, collectivist Statists know only force and fraud. Experience over generations teaches that such reptiles will stop at nothing to herd all into Abyss.

Has anyone truly analyzed the inner IPCC process? As far as I’ve understood the summary for policy makers is written (at least published) first and the “science” thereafter (sic). So who gets to write the very first draft of THE summary and thereby establish the framework for the “science”? From the looks of it (use of numerous WWF and Greenpeace sources in the “science” report) NGOs (with money from somewhere) seem play a huge role and are using the IPCC as a marketing organization for the climate change industry they are part of.

“it made no sense, addressed none of the issues and just advertised the IPCC’s arrogance.”

This response pattern is probably one of their unwritten “principles”! When have we ever seen a response from the IPCC (or members of the inner circle) which made sense or addressed the issues in the face of any criticism?

The same pattern (and arrogance) permeates Briffa’s responses to reviewer comments on the 2nd Order Draft of Chapter 6 of AR4. If you’re interested in seeing how Briffa (and others on the “chapter team”) dealt with the reviewer comments – particularly on the hockey-stick paragraph – I did an analysis, that you might want to take a look at:

So two sentences in a 1000 page document weren’t from peer reviewed journals (Although the “up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive…” comment originally is from Nepstad 1994 and Nepstad 2004 which are peer reviewed). I take it that the rest of the document you don’t have problems with though as it’s from peer reviewed research and publications?

Of course the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Carbon Chicanery) and the AGW’ers (Al Gores Wranglers) will continue to push their Null Hypothesis, because they never have, do not now, and in my opinion never will have any empirical evidence to support their swindle. Manufactured Climate Ingenuity is all they have come up with, and that is as good as it will get for Man Made Global Warming (Should be Mann Made Global Warming, with inventivness from Jones Briffa Hansen et al). At least they have managed to invent the biggest Scientific Swindle of all time, and future generations will be able to look back at 2009 as the year the Hoax was exposed !

When adding up the intelligence of 2500 scientists, the result is less than that displayed by a common cat, which can better assess what is worth eating and what should be avoided, and can better determine the threat posed by those getting close when deciding if it should defend itself or run away and hide.

I suspect there are some canceling elements involved in the math. Looks like we may have proof of negative intelligence.

“in my opinion never will have any empirical evidence to support their swindle.”

What empirical evidence would you like?

Empirical measurements of the Earth’s heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. (Murphy 2009)

In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions. (Usoskin 2005)

Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. (Meehle 2009)

Sea levels are measured by a variety of methods that show close agreement – sediment cores, tidal gauges, satellite measurements. What they find is sea level rise has been steadily accelerating over the past century. (Church 2008)

So two sentences in a 1000 page document weren’t from peer reviewed journals (Although the “up to 40% of the Brazilian forest is extremely sensitive…” comment originally is from Nepstad 1994 and Nepstad 2004 which are peer reviewed). I take it that the rest of the document you don’t have problems with though as it’s from peer reviewed research and publications?

We have proof that they were willing to include things solely to promote activism, such as the glaciers info. What proof do we have that the rest of the document doesn’t suffer from the taint?

We have proof that they were willing to include things solely to promote activism, such as the glaciers info. What proof do we have that the rest of the document doesn’t suffer from the taint?

You don’t actually have proof that they included things solely to promote activism, you have proof that they made a mistake by not check the origin of that one comment.

Why don’t you try and find the proof that the rest of the document is incorrect? So far you found that the the glacier comment was mistake. Surely if it’s all wrong as you seem to suggest, it’d be easy to disprove the whole thing as false.

It’s easy to make a mistake as Mr Watts found out with the surfacestations.org project. The results indicate that yes, there is a bias associated with poor exposure sites; poor sites show a cooler maximum temperature compared to good sites. (Menne 2010)

Easy mistake to make, but a very worth while project to do which will hopefully shine further light on the US temperature record.

The notion that the “UK Greenpeace director calls for removal of UN IPCC Chair” in order to restore ‘faith’ in the climate science is an acute oxymoron under the circumstances. To call for the head of THE HEAD of the IPCC is to call into question the very climate science itself, given the commanding heights it has occupied as adjudicator and disseminator of this new ‘truth’. What we are really watching is the death throes of the IPCC and all who sailed with it. Pachauri can resign in disgrace or be sacked but the political shockwaves emanating from either course will be fatal to AGW and all the players and actors who have sailed with the IPCC must know it deep down. They must now play out this inevitable Shakespearean tragedy illuminating their fatal conceit and human folly. The lesson is a timeless one for us all whereby an unelected and self-appointed claque gain ultimate power and begin the inevitable path to superior self-belief and human invincibility. They cannot posibbly conceive of their own hubris, shortcomings and eccentricities now, but must run about in ever decreasing circles until they disappear up their own fundamental orifices.

Simply put these were self-appointed leftists, gathering together to do the usual. Remake their utopian world in their mind’s eye or more succinctly their own image and history screams at us down the ages just how that will all end. We are watching that and their agonising death throes right now. It’s rivetting stuff really.

Lets get this straight. The IPCC WG2 and WG3 documents rely wholly and solely on the conclusions of WG1. Therefore the numerous errors and suppositions in WG1 leave WG2 and WG3 totally useless.

Furthermore, the whole AGW scam relies on the premise that the warming of the 20th C was UNPRECEDENTED. In view of the fact that it is now patently obvious that this is not so, even fools should at least raise an eyebrow as to the veracity of the IPCC reports.

Furthermore, the IPCC was setup by the UNFCCC. Article 2 of the UNFCCC specifies the ultimate objective of the Convention and states:

‘The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related
legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties may adoptis to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the
Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations
in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous
anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

In other words, this was a done deal way back in 1992 as a result of the Rio summit. Everything subsequent to that has been biased, a one team football match if you will. (as proof, there are no dissenting papers in the reports AT ALL, not one, nadda).

Furthermore, the various doubts cast on the surface temperature records, which supposedly show high levels of warming especially since the 80’s should raise the other eyebrow above ones hairline.

So yes SteveE (00:55:36) : I not only have a problem with the other 1000 pages of AR4, I have a problem with the TAR and the SAR.

You just don’t get it do you? For years alarmists have been shouting down skeptics with “peer review peer review, nothing counts except peer review”…

Your ignorance is palpable”

I agree that you shouldn’t believe everything that you read and that alarmists will over state certain points to get their point across.

However that argument swings both ways. Saying that an entire document is false and the concept of man made global warming is a lie becasue of a couple of sentences were wrong is just as alarmist in my opinion.

As an aside here, I should add that it’s rivetting stuff personally because of the larger ramifications for the whole UN edifice. Essentially the UN has been a democratic gaggle of gangsters and tyrants among a minority of liberal democracies historically. A ludicrous situation. The cracks have been obvious for a long time and the current schemozzle of the IPCC will only place its shortcomings under the microscope even further. I have felt for a long time the liberal democracies should ditch the gaggle of gangsters and form a new United Liberal Democratic Nations with very limited aims and goals and a very lean administration. Non-qualifying nations who aspire to ultimate full membership and voting rights status can sign on as associate members and have their say but are not entitled to vote until they meet the minimum qualification criteria for full membership. The gangsters and tyros can please themselves what gang they join.

Anthony,
Thank you for this post. It is interesting how this IPCC document discusses the “scientific literature” as if they only considered peer-reviewed papers. Back in 2003, the IPCC lauched a scheme to allow them to include citations to “gray literature” in what is known as Annex 2. See http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc-principles-appendix-a.pdf

This scheme allowed them to include alarmist claims and predictions in AR4 which never would have passed peer-review. Still, in 2008, Pachauri was still making the claim the assessment reports were based solely on peer-reviewed literature. The truth will out… and has.

Empirical measurements of the Earth’s heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. (Murphy 2009)

Since the mid 1970s, global temperatures have been warming at around 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade. (Meehle 2009)

It follows that it’s a good bet that 2019’s temperature will be 0.2 C higher than 2009’s. (Or even 0.1 or 0.2 degrees higher, given the pause in the Noughties that needs to be made up for.)

There’s a well-known event-prediction site on the Internet where you can wager on that 0.2 degree warming (under Markets –> Climate & Weather): https://www.intrade.com . If the current odds aren’t to your liking, you can make a bid or offer at the odds you like; it will be activated when your target level is reached.

You can also bet on whether 2019 will be warmer at all than 2009. (The payoff will be lower, naturally.)

And you can bet on whether 2010 will be THE warmest year on record. (Hansen, Schmidt, and the Met Office think it’s “more than likely,” but the skeptics have set the odds at only a 1 in 3 chance.) The same bet is available for 2011.

Or you can bet on whether each of the years 2010 through 2014 will be among the five warmest years. Bets on several or all of those years would seem like a winning proposition from a warmist perspective, and yet the odds are attractive, because the skeptics are betting the warmists are wrong. The odds offered on 2010 being among the five warmest years are only about 67% when they ought to be much higher, if it is “more likely than not” to be THE warmest year on record.

the IPCC has valid reasons for publishing the text as it stands in the report.
“”Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”
Excerpt, UN Agenda 21

“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome,
The First Global Revolution (1992)

What if we do not want to accept the kind of revolution they are trying to impose on us?, what are we going to do in order to retaliate such a menace against our common way of living?, who are THEY to change our customs?, have they asked us our opinion, will they?, it seems they won’t: “democracy has failed and new forms of governance are required” and “a common enemy must be found, one either real or invented, to unite humanity.”

Look them up and have a read if you’re interested. The Murphy one is quite interesting as it shows how you should also consider the heat content of the oceans and not just the atmosphere when looking for evidence for global warming.

Church’s paper is quite good as it looks at a number of different proxies for sea level that point to a significant rise over the the 20th century
compared to the last few centuries and millennia.

SteveE (04:12:50) :
Empirical measurements of the Earth’s heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening
Specially in United Nations’ building in NY , there, all the accumulated rage from the ex-red-comissars, it is about to blow up, the heat will consume them from the inside out.
A free humanity without the dictatorship of that self indulging bureaucracy, which has become a kind of world’s bastard courtesanship, and which has imposed and it is imposing hundreds of binding agreements upon humankind , will emerge to build a real free new world.

SteveE, as has been shown in a peer-reviewed paper, 80% of all peer reviewed literature is shown to be wrong after just 25 years. Those who run to peer reviewed papers instead of invoking critical thinking will end up looking like fools. 4 out of every 5 are wrong. In fact, you probably just referenced two of them. Think about it.

The peer review process is not intended to produce facts. it produces ideas that will hopefully move science ahead, that’s why so many of them turn out to be wrong. They often miss many salient features of the intended subject, but that alone might get someone else to produce a better theory.

So, you can believe whatever you want, I will continue to doubt any and all theories about climate until real empirical evidence supports it. That will probably take several more decades.

We have proof that they were willing to include things solely to promote activism, such as the glaciers info. What proof do we have that the rest of the document doesn’t suffer from the taint?

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With due respect, you sound like the type who would deny “proof” if it was pasted to your forehead. Anybody with a rational mind and a little understanding of Geo-politics can smell the stink from a mile away.

Even if AGW was irrefutably, 100% true, it would still be hijacked and used for political agenda under the guise of saving the planet. It has nothing to do with saving the planet, but everything to do with power and control.

I think that is a very healthy approach to take. The problem comes though if we wait for several more decades and find out that man made climate change is occuring the damage and cost is likely to be much more than if we do something about it now.

I appreciate your doubts, but in my opinion the availible data at present points towards MMGW caused by increased CO2. It’s not perfect but it’s the best guess at the moment.

You don’t actually have proof that they included things solely to promote activism, you have proof that they made a mistake by not check the origin of that one comment.

Why don’t you try and find the proof that the rest of the document is incorrect? So far you found that the the glacier comment was mistake. Surely if it’s all wrong as you seem to suggest, it’d be easy to disprove the whole thing as false.

1. It wasn’t just a mistake: It was a glaringly absurd error. It should never have been included even in a first draft, given that experts were supposedly in charge of drafting the document.

2. Supposedly this document was gone over with a fine-tooth comb by hundreds of reviewers and commenters over a multi-year period — that’s part of its claim to authority. It’s no excuse to point out that some one-man blog-post might just as easily have been mistaken, and therefore that this 2035 flub is equally excusable. This error should have been caught, given the procedures in place. The fact that it wasn’t is a hint (at the least) that those reviewers didn’t want to spoil a good story.

3. Several reviewers raised their eyebrows over this claim in the comments, but their concern was treated in a pro forma fashion. Here’s what blog-commenter PaulM said about it:

In the second round of comments someone queried the statement about disappearing by 2035 being alongside the statement about reducing to 100,000 km^2. Also the lack of references was pointed out.

In the government comments, Japan picked out this sentence as important and asked what the confidence level was. They also queried the lack of references for the sentence about glacier melt being due to AGW.

The response was ‘Appropriate revisions and editing made’. The revision seems to consist of putting in the WWF reference and inserting ‘likely’ after ‘will’.

IOW, this flaw didn’t just “slip by” the editors in the Asia team. Their attention had been directed to it. They CHOSE to let it stand rather than drop it.

4. Georg Kaser, a lead author of another section, sent an e-mail to the IPCC’s technical support team before publication pointing out this gross error. The team CHOSE to ignore it.

5. Subsequently, Kaser wrote a letter to Dr. Lal, head of the Asia group, asking him to issue a retraction. Lal CHOSE to ignore it. (Lal claims he never received the letter. To me, this denial is an exact parallel of Pachauri’s falsified denial that he was warned in months in advance of Copenhagen about the 2035 error, and Pachauri’s dismissal of the Indian government’s non-alarmist glacier report as “voodoo science.” Both denials further undermine the credibility of the IPCC, by seeming to indicate an alarmist bias so strong they are willing to go to any length to defend it.)

However that argument swings both ways. Saying that an entire document is false and the concept of man made global warming is a lie because of a couple of sentences were wrong is just as alarmist in my opinion.

There are four things wrong with that paragraph. First, as I argued above, this isn’t just an error; this looks like evidence of systematic bias in the direction of alarmism.

Second, it’s a strawman (an exaggerated and easily refuted caricature) to characterize the contrarians’ position as being that the whole document is false, although a few posters here have implied that. Because many posters feel they won’t be heard unless they shout, there’s a tendency to go overboard. You must realize that this site contains many wild-and-wooly posts, especially post-Climategate, that are unrepresentative of skepticism’s sensible selvage.

What I have repeatedly said — and what I’m sure is the mainstream opinion, at least among the regulars here — is that such evidence of bias and sloppiness taints the “settledness” of “the science” and implies that the IPCC’s work, and climatology generally, needs to undergo a “do-over,” or review, under the auspices of independent panels of scientists, with skeptical input. This review is not only justified to purify “the science”; it’s a necessary condition for regaining the public’s trust. There will be no CO2 legislation in the US unless that trust is regained. This could be incorporated into the IPCC process as another layer of review. It might delay publication of AR5 by a year. Tough.

Third, it’s not only this one flub — 2035 — that undermines the authority of AR4 and the IPCC. Glaciergate included other howlers that point to sloppiness and/or bias, such as (excuse me if I’m overstating a bit here) the incorrect (vastly overstated) figure given for the size of the Himalayan glacier cap, and the incorrect math for how much of that extent was being lost per year. Harder to pin down are the errors of omission in Glaciergate: the failure to give adequate weight to the impact of soot, to acknowledge that the glaciers in the western Himalayas are growing, to acknowledge that the great height of the Himalayas means that melting in the upper reaches is impossible, and to acknowledge that the impact on water supplies even if total melting occurred would be minor, since snow melt would continue to provide water throughout the year. These are indicators of bad faith.

Fourth, it’s not just Glaciergate. It’s also Amazongate, Disastergate, Water-shortage-gate, Desert-gate, and several others that were less outrageously wrong. These all are evidence of a strongly propagandistic intent covered by smarmy dissimulation, which severely undercuts the authority of the report and the organization, procedures, and personnel that created it.

A thorough housecleaning is needed. The IPCC can pay now (by being embarrassed) or pay later (by being ignored).

Nice idea! Not sure I can be bothered to bet on the 2019 one though as 9 nine years is a bit long to wait to see a return.

2010 is a tempting bet though, however as 2009 was the second hottest on record (tied with 2007) it’d be a a hard one to beat!

One of the neatest features of the Intrade set-up, as opposed to man-on-man betting, is that bettors can close out their bets before the settlement date. IOW, if you have a pressing need for cash in an emergency, you can get access to it. (Given today’s low interest rates, not much would be lost by being tied up in a bet.)

More important, this means that if you think the odds on some proposition are out of line with reality, you can bet on the “right” side and then close out your bet when bettors come to their sensesanc “correct” the odds. And this closing out can be done automatically, by placing a standing close-out order at any odds-level you specify. The bid/ask market will devour your order when it reaches its level.

For instance, if you think the odds on 2010 being THE warmest year on record should be 2 in 3, but they are currently 1 in 3 (as they are), then bet now and put in a “stop-profit” order to exit your bet when they rise to 2 in 3. You’ll have doubled your money this way.

It’s less risky betting that bettors will “come to their senses” than betting on the actual outcome. In fact, although I don’t believe 2010 will be the warmest year on record, I do believe that enough “warmist” bettors will weigh in on that side of the bet that they’ll drive the odds in that direction, so that would be the smart way to bet.

Why such an eagerness for power of these UN guys?, they onanistically satisfy themselves believing they are the saviours of the world, the ones who will make a one world government. But, before doing that, will you please ask the world’s people first?.
You keep on saying lies about global warming/climate change just to fulfill your dreams of domination over us. Believe me! you are neither the initiates you believe you are, nor the saint members of any silly “white brotherhood” who some one from “above” chose to save the world. Be very careful, common human beings, yeah, those who you want to save and rule, are a bit stubborn and hard to convince, and use to react in very nasty ways, so my advice for you it’s just cool it down…before it’s too late.

You obviously have not been around this website very long have you? Do yourself a favour and read some of the “backstory” here from the last couple of months. Then you will see what grounds the sceptics have for picking holes in large parts of the IPCC report and the data it is founded on.

It is not just a couple of pages that are not backed up by data. And then there is the claim that the report deals with peer-reviewed science and not articles from the New York times plus some Swiss guy’s Master’s thesis.

“You don’t actually have proof that they included things solely to promote activism, you have proof that they made a mistake by not check the origin of that one comment…So far you found that the the glacier comment was mistake.”

No, not a mistake. I debunked the idea that Glaciergate was “a mistake” in my post here:

Hasnain’s 2035 date and the vanishing in 40 years were debunked in a book by the Himalayan expert Jack Ives in 2004. He mentions Hasnain by name. Kumar Mainali, editor of the peer-reviewed journal Himalayan Journal of Sciences (HJS), described Ives’ 2004 book as “probably the single most influential monograph ever published on Himalayan environmental issues”, and Ives himself is a towering figure, who served the UN. The HJS published a paper by Ives in 2005 which was effectively an extract from his 2004 monograph.

So Hasnain’s glacier claim was debunked in the scientific community YEARS before AR4 came out in 2007.

Please stop referring to this as “a mistake”. It was a deliberate lie, and a known falsehood, and the responsible IPCC authors have since confirmed the same.

With due respect, you sound like the type who would deny “proof” if it was pasted to your forehead. Anybody with a rational mind and a little understanding of Geo-politics can smell the stink from a mile away.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I shall assume there was some error in editing, formating, possibly in translation, that caused your remark to apparently be directed at me, since I have been aware of the IPCC stench for many years now.

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’

Now then, I don’t know how they define “activism” on your planet, but on this one that certainly looks like it. Trying to encourage policy-makers and politicians to take some concrete action? Isn’t that what activists do? Even when that involves using “facts” of questionable veracity? PR campaigning 101, used by WWF, Greenpeace, PETA, and even during “straight” political campaigns.

I think that is a very healthy approach to take. The problem comes though if we wait for several more decades and find out that man made climate change is occurring the damage and cost is likely to be much more than if we do something about it now.

I appreciate your doubts, but in my opinion the available data at present points towards MMGW caused by increased CO2. It’s not perfect but it’s the best guess at the moment.

Prevention is better than cure.

Are you sure. You can remove a person’s heart and thus prevent any possibility of a heart attack. Seems to fit your definition.

I believe that with continued technology advances and by limiting economic impacts we will be positioned much, MUCH better in the future to deal with any problems that might arise. Think back 50-100 years and look at what we can do today that we couldn’t accomplish then. And, if we cut the heart out of the economy instead …

I’m all for doing smart things now to limit environmental damage no matter what might cause it, let’s just not start doing stupid things like raising the price of energy needlessly.

I agree that you shouldn’t believe everything that you read and that alarmists will over state certain points to get their point across.

However that argument swings both ways. Saying that an entire document is false and the concept of man made global warming is a lie becasue of a couple of sentences were wrong is just as alarmist in my opinion.

Wouldn’t you agree?

Yes I would. But I didn’t say the entire document is false.
Would you not agree that turning global economies upside down on the basis of documents now cast with the shadow of doubt is rash at the very least?

The most important document is the WG1. Most doubt is there. The other two, WG2 and WG3 rely totally on WG1, which means the whole document AR4 must be in some doubt. Time for the world to pause and take a breath at least. Would you agree?